THE ROLE OF EUROREGIONS AS A FACTOR OF SPATIAL INTEGRATION AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT—THE FOCUS ON THE SELECTED BORDER AREA

Abstract

The political changes that affected the European area in the second half of the 20th century conditioned the development of European countries on the principle of Euroregions, as interesting creations of neighboring countries. Formed along the political borders of neighboring countries, Euroregions today play a significant role in the enlargement process of the European Union. At the end of the 20th century, the formation of Euroregions covered the area of the Western Balkans as well. Of particular interest are the so-called ”water Euroregions”, formed along the border of the Republic of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as instruments of economic development of border rural areas in the Podrinje region. The subject of the research analyzes the degree of development of border rural areas, as tourist destinations, before and after the formed Euroregions. The research refers to the destinations of the ”Serbian” Podrinje, which are more attractive and active for tourists. The aim of this paper is to determine the change and burden of rural border area due to the development of tourism, using the indicator of tourist operation (I.T.O.) and the tourist function indexes to measure the degree of development of a destination. The results of the research indicate that three types of tourist destinations have been developed in the studied area: destinations with almost non-existent tourist activity (<4), with small-scale tourist activity (4 – 10) and developed and eminently tourist destinations (40 – 100). The results are presented in the form of tables and figures.